Review of Neon Genesis Evangelion

So I wanna start by saying that NGE for me is a 10, but I don't think by any means it's a perfect or even that good anime. So on my initial watching of it what stuck with me the most was the action, the mystery, and the animation. The characters felt weirdly presented and ultimately a lot of the show and it's themes didn't really get through to me. But the sheer brutality of the action sequences, the mysteries that were never really spelled out for you that you kind of just had to piece together on your own, and the stunning old school animationwere what made me love it. Based on that initial viewing I would've given it either an 8 or a 9, hard to say. It did something which is fairly rare for me which is it made me want more. Normally I watch shows one episode at a time over a couple weeks and when they are done I move on to the next one. NGE I watched in only a couple sittings and when it ended I wanted more of it. That alone would have me giving it a pretty good score in spite of some apparent flaws and problems I had with it which brings me to my big issue I have with NGE.

So my main issue is that I feel like the show is too obscure with how it tries to present it's story, characters, and themes. Don't get me wrong, I respect the artistic direction it takes and I hate it when shows are too up front and transparent about stuff. But like I said, on my initial viewing I didn't fully understand half of what I had seen. And maybe that's part of the allure. The confusing and open to interpretation nature of it lets the viewer draw their own conclusions to a degree. Which sounds nice on paper, but I feel like NGE laid it on too thick and didn't give the viewer enough to work with in many cases. This is a pretty huge flaw and honestly I think for a casually viewer this might even make it a kind of subpar experience since it's more than reasonable to walk away from the show with just a confused "Okay, but why?" attitude especially with all the rampant praise the show gets.

However, after I watched it I went and looked more into it. I read wiki articles, watched in depth breakdown videos, and took the time to really get into what this show had to offer. After that I rewatched it with all that I had learned in mind and was able to really dig into it and see what it had to offer. I still don't think it's perfect, but it's rare that I would ever care enough about a show to put this much effort into it. Overall the time I spent with the series and the feelings I got from it were enough for me to say it was a 10/10 experience. Mind you I don't consider 10/10 perfect as perfection isn't a real thing. I consider 10/10 something that really felt special and unique that will stick with me for a long time. And all that is true of NGE (to me at least).